Editing Update of the Avatar/Update 221 (section)

===<span id="5">Shroud in the News: MMORPG.com & IGN Unfiltered</span>===
[http://www.mmorpg.com/ MMORPG.COM]: Red Thomas got a sneak peek at our Q2 schedule update last week and wrote a preview article for MMORPG.com entitled “Shooting Solo“.

:''Shroud of the Avatar has been making major strides towards completing much of the vision backers funded four years ago, this April. While the online and multiplayer of the game has been critical to the financial success of the project, plenty of people backed the project anticipating a more solo experience. Development over the next quarter should go a long way towards delivering on that expectation.''
[[Image:logo_mmorpg.jpg|230px|right]]
:''I recently spent a day in Austin talking with the team and getting the scoop on what their plans were for the next few months. A lot of the last quarter was spent working on the economy, improving character models, expanding the diversity of weapons and armor in the game, and putting more story into the game.<br><br>The next quarter will see the rest of the story from the three lines put into place, and a good amount of content polish. Economy polish will also continue, with specific focus on making the offline economy more viable. Shroud will also be getting some major help in the new player experience, with new scenes and concepts specifically implemented to introduce new players to the game.''

[http://www.ign.com/watch/ign-unfiltered?category=videos&page=1 IGN Unfiltered]: Ryan McCaffrey the host of IGN Unfiltered did a long interview with Richard “Lord British” Garriott and they posted it in three parts as well as a few excerpts like “What It’s Like to Poop in Space”. Alex Osborn covers each of the highlights in a few mini-articles to complement the videos.

:''[http://www.ign.com/videos/2017/03/15/richard-garriott-on-pulling-pranks-and-pooping-in-space-ign-unfiltered-17-part-1 Interview Part 1]:  Ultima creator Richard Garriott discusses his journey to outer space, his love of haunted houses, pulling pranks, pooping in space, and more!<br><br>{{#Widget:YouTube|id=dnUqYgJH090|width=600}}<br><br>[http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/03/14/ultima-creator-on-what-its-actually-like-to-go-to-the-bathroom-in-space-a-ign-unfiltered?watch Highlight 1: Space Poop]: ''In addition to creating the beloved role-playing series Ultima, Richard “Lord British” Garriott has been to outer space and discussed the unpleasant experience of pooping in zero gravity many miles away from Earth. On the latest episode of our interview show [http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/02/04/ign-unfiltered-every-episode-ever IGN Unfiltered], Garriott noted that while books have been written how to go to the bathroom in space, they’ve always detailed the way you’re trained to go in space, and no one as far as he knows tells the “actual story of how troubling it is to go to the bathroom in space.”<br><br>:{{#Widget:YouTube|id=m7LGRyMlXYs|width=600}}<br><br>[http://www.ign.com/videos/2017/03/22/that-time-richard-garriott-pointed-an-uzi-at-a-guy-ign-unfiltered-17-episode-2 Interview Part 2]: Richard Garriott discusses how early success made him an “asshole” and when the police told him he could shoot a home intruder with an Uzi.<br><br>{{#Widget:YouTube|id=QWhb-cMF8hQ|width=600}}<br><br>[http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/03/21/ea-shot-down-ultima-online-pitch-3-times-a-ign-unfiltered?watch Highlight 2: EA Shot Down Ultima Online Pitch 3 Times]: From “bastard stepchild” to worldwide phenomenon. Electronic Arts needed a whole lot of convincing before Ultima creator Richard “Lord British” Garriott was given the green light to make Ultima Online. On the latest episode of our interview show IGN Unfiltered, Garriott shared the story behind the creation of Ultima Online. He and his team wanted to make a multiplayer Ultima game—which they referred to internally as “Multima”—for quite some time, but waited until the market was ready for such a product. When the internet started to take off, Garriott and Starr Long decided now was the time to finally pitch their “Multima” idea to EA. As part of the publisher’s proposal process, Garriott said the project’s lifetime sales estimate needed to justify the costs required to make the game, “but the way to determine that is with comparables,” of which there were none at the time. The closest comparison they could find had 15,000 sales. So, taking into consideration the appeal of the Ultima brand, they doubled that to 30 thousand, which still wasn’t nearly enough to green light the project.<br><br>{{#Widget:YouTube|id=mgpKHuxy4To|width=600}}<br><br>[http://www.ign.com/videos/2017/03/29/how-ultima-online-changed-rpgs-forever-and-the-future-of-rpgs-ign-unfiltered-17-episode-3 Interview Part 3:] Ultima creator Richard Garriott discusses the challenges and triumphs of the industry-changing Ultima Online MMORPG, plus his vision of the genre’s future.<br><br>{{#Widget:YouTube|id=CGVbuAAumeA|width=600}}<br><br>[http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/03/28/ultima-creator-on-the-future-of-the-rpg-genre-a-ign-unfiltered?watch Highlight 3: Ultima Creator on the Future of the RPG Genre]: Better tech doesn’t necessarily result in deeper games. Richard “Lord British” Garriott, the creator of the Ultima series, recently shared his thoughts on the future of the role-playing genre and how increasing CPU power will continue to result in games that aren’t very deep. When asked on the latest episode of our interview show IGN Unfiltered where he thinks the RPG genre is heading in the next five or ten years, Garriott replied by discussing where he thinks all genres are headed. “One of my pessimisms about the gaming industry is a problem that is created by the success of the increase in CPU power due to Moore’s Law,” he said.''<br><br>{{#Widget:YouTube|id=vg-iTIK3IiU|width=600}}

<hr style="margin: 2em;">